2009 Magnafique

We bottled  our 2009 Magnafique Bordeaux Blend tonight.  It took a record 6 blending trials before the group decided on the blend, which ended up being:

 

75% Idaho Cabernet

10% Cabernet Franc

10% Malbec

5% Merlot

 

We tried lots of combinations without any clear favorites until the very end.  We tried blends without any merlot and blends without any malbec, but we liked the complexity of having them both in the blend.  Actually we would have liked to have more merlot in the blend but this year's merlot didn't blend as well.

 

We did taste the fined merlot vs the unfined merlot and the difference was amazing. The merlot that had been fined with egg whites was much smoother with less bitter tannins more fruit.  We racked the remaining merlot off the egg whites, combined the unfined and fined wine and added 2 more egg whites. We will let that sit for 2 weeks and then do a Boisique Blending Trial on Oct 13 or 14, followed by bottling.

 

We've heard that WA is picking merlot in the next few days.  We expect Idaho is a week or 2 behind that.  We are thinking the ID Viognier will be ready in the next week, followed by the WA Syrah then the ID Tempranillo, ID Merlot and Malbec and then the ID Syrah.  The WA Cabernet will be the last grape sometime around Oct 20-24.  It is going to be a very busy October!

 

We will have to get a plan together about winery coverage because several members will be out in late October: Troy, Ray and Mike will all be out the week of Oct 18th.

 

Photos from the last few activities are uploaded to Picasa (at the end of the Wine2010 album).

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010 

 

 

Trial Blending #2 on Thursday

Trial blending for our Bordeaux Blend is Thursday. We're planning on starting at 5:30pm and having some snackies while we taste and then bottling after we decide on the blend.    Bring something to share...see you there!

 

Troy

 

Here are some thoughts on the Mangafique blend this year.  We're trying a Cabernet "Left Bank" style Bordeaux blend.  They are cab & cab-franc heavy with smaller amounts of merlot and malbec.

 

We want about a 10oz sample (300 ml).  Here are the starting blends and volumes. The syringes will make it much faster to do the blending this year.

  

Blend #1 (pre-blending favorite)

70% Cabernet    210ml

20% Cab Franc    60ml

10% Merlot          30ml

0% Malbec

 

We'll compare that blend to 2 others and see which we like, and then refine.

 

Blend #2 (add Malbec back in)

70% Cabernet     210ml

15% CFranc         45ml

10% Merlot           30ml

5% Malbec           15ml

 

Blend #3 (Amp up the Merlot)

70% Cabernet      210ml

15% CFranc          45ml

15% Merlot            45ml

Cousin Blending Trials

The group met tonight to decide on a blend for our Cousins blend of Petite Sirah and Syrah.

 

The Petite Sirah alone is very fruity, but doesn't have much body, finish or nose.  The Syrah alone is thin, doesn't have much fruit, but has a nice nose and finish.  Combined they are the best of both: A nice nose, good fruit, a nice mouth feel and finish.  It's not an overly complicated wine, just a nice pleasant red wine that you want to drink.  It should drink very well young (our favorite kind!).

 

Earlier pre-blending trials had pointed us to 50/50 blend or better, heavier on the Petite Sirah side.  We tried various blends ranging from equal parts to 70% Petite Sirah.  With the 70/30 we lost the Syrah and  50/50 had the most Syrah flavor.  We ended up with 55% Petite Sirah and 45% Syrah.  We will bottle the Cousins on Monday at 6pm, washing bottles at noon.

 

We tried the Merlot, which we fined with egg whites a week ago.  Much of the astringency is gone and the wine is much improved.  It needs another week to settle out and then we'll do blending trials for the Bordeaux Blend (Magnafique) and Boisique.  We plan to do those trials on Thursday the 30th at 5pm and then bottle afterwards (again, washing bottles prior on Wednesday or Thursday at noon-TBD).

 

We have 25G of Petite Sirah.  That means we'll get 45.45G of Cousins, or 227 bottles (about 19 cases total-- 3.8 cases each).

 

2009 Cousins

20.45 G of Syrah

25.0 G of Petite Sirah

 

After bottling Cousins, we will have about 10G of Syrah left.  We'll blend it into some "Encore" with some Malbec, after we bottle the Magnafique and Boisique.

 

 

Merlot Fining

We decided to fine the Merlot with some egg whites to try and reduce the bitter tannins.  We stirred 2 egg-whites into the 30G barrel and will let it sit for 7-14 days and see how it changes. We left a 5G carboy alone, which we can use to compare the taste, which will be very interesting!    We will want to bottle or rack the merlot in 2 weeks so it doesn't sit on the sediment.

 

For reference, we used 2 farm-fresh eggs (2oz egg whites) and 4oz of a salt water solution  (1/2 tsp salt in 1C water).

 

 

 

2010 Season

The group met tonight to discuss the 2010 grapes and bottling of the 2009 wines.

 

The wine season is coming together, although we haven't been able to close the deal with Wood River for Merlot and Malbec--so we're starting to be concerned that those grapes might fall through.  As an alternative we will see if we can get some (#500?) Malbec or Merlot from Larry Kornze. It will be fewer pounds than we had planned, so we'll try and get some Tempranillo from Larry too--Ray thought he would have about 600# available.

 

Lee talked with Roger about some Syrah or Cabernet, and thought some would be available. With the late growing year we're going to go with earlier riping grapes and ask for 1,000-1,500# of Williamson Syrah and no Williamson Cabernet . That will give us some extra gallons for others who are trying winemaking with us (Tomlinson and OLeary).

 

Lee is going to take a bottle of our Petite Sirah Port out to Steve and Leslee at Robertson's and see if we might be able to glean some late Syrah for a port this year.  Our fingers are crossed for 300-400#.  If we can get it, we'll have to start looking for more fortifying spirits.

 

We're unsure about a white wine this year. Roger said he has some young Vioginer, which we think would be worth trying.  We're going to try for 500-1,000#.  Michele is interested in some Viognier. Kirk indicated he is interested in trying his hand, and some Viognier would be a good place to start.  It would be fun to go out and pick it ourselves, if we can.

 

We tasted the Merlot, which has been coming along but is still very bitter. A trial blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Malbec was promising--if we can just take the edge off of the Merlot.  We discussed fining the Merlot to reduce the astringency bitter tannins.  We think we'll try some egg whites, which is a proven gentle method, to help smooth out the Merlot.  We are meeting Monday morning at 11am to confirm how much to add and do the fining. We'll let the merlot sit for a couple weeks after adding the egg whites while we bottle the Cousins.  We tasted the 50/50 Cousins, which is good.  Adding a bit more Petite Sirah punches up the fruit. We need to settle on a final blend.  Blending trials is always something to look forward to!

 

Here is the count of gallons from the last racking. We'll be bottling everything but the WA Cab and a barrel of the ID Cab--which we'll hold over for a Reserve Cabernet.  That's about 250G - 60G = 190G of wine.  That's about 16 cases of bottles each.  (Note: we've already bottled the port).  Time to start cleaning bottles!  We should try and get some bottling done in September, while we have the manpower around.

 

From early trial blending I'm guessing we'll have

 

1. A "Left Bank" Cabernet style Bordeaux.  Blend TBD, starting with 70% Cab, 20% Franc, 10% Merlot

 

2. Boisique. 75/25% blend?

 

3. Cousins (around 70% PS 30%S)

 

4. Encore Syrah/Malbec ( Something like 75% Syrah, 25% Malbec--depending on other blends)

 

5. 60G Cab Reserves...to be bottled in the Spring.

 

 

Rough 2010 Wine Gallons

Willy's Cab      55 gal      

WA Cab          35 gal      
Cab Franc         5gal     
Merlot               35gal                      
Malbec             25 gal      
Syrah                30gal        
P.Syrah             25gal       

Cousins            15gal      
Port                   17gal       

 

Porto Bottled

Troy, Mike and Bob worked this afternoon for a couple of hours and got the Petite Sirah Porto bottled. It was just a 15G barrel, so it went quickly.  Mike had picked up some splits and our regular corks fit them.  Mike got both some green splits and some clear splits. The wine sure looks purdy in that clear glass with the sunshine on it.  :)  We talked about getting a new picture for the port label. Maybe a sunset shot over the river or pond. Something to make the bottle stand out.  Check out the photos online: http://picasaweb.google.com/riverwoodswinery/Wine2010 

 

Interestingly after racking the wine and stirring it up, the alcohol/fire was more present than before.  Something about how the fortified wine stratifies in the barrel, I guess. We ended up with 34 splits each, plus a half dozen set aside for the growers and maybe a contest.  We're all pleased with how the Porto turned out--especially for our first Fortified wine.  We'll look for another opportunity to make some Port. We need to find a late harvest grape. Maybe we can glean some late Syrah this year???

 

We added about 15ppm meta to the wine before bottling--most of which will get blown off during the bottling process.  We couldn't quite remember how the hose set-up went to go from the barrel into the bottler. We ended up doing a step-down hose that worked, although it kept wanting to pop off of the barrel spigot.  We'll have to come up with a better mechanism.  Ray might remember what we did last time. 

 

The Porto barrel (Troy's 15G Hungarian) has been meta/citric rinsed and is drying in the garage.  We started hydrating the large 60G barrel for white wine fermentation. It's leaking pretty badly.  I smelled my empty 26G American barrel--everything smelled fine--and burned a bit more of a sulfur wick to hold it until the next crush is over.